The "Macs are too expensive" argument is one of the most tiresome and long-lived flamewars in internet history. Obviously, Apple makes a premium product and charges premium prices, and you can always find a computer from another vendor that seems to match or exceed specs that costs less. But if you look at Apple's Mac Pro line, and compare it not so much to other vendors, but to the past lineup of Mac Pros, you discover some very unpleasant truths that help explain why Apple is enjoying record earnings for their Mac line, but doing so to the detriment of some its most loyal and valuable customers.

So in other words, you get what you pay for. You can go the hackintosh route and get what you pay (community support, drivers that may work, etc based on the community). In the event that something goes wrong you can always rely on the community to fix it even though the machine is down right?

Yes, you get something when you pay more. Mainly a much nicer case, standard Bluetooth/Wireless and Apple support. But this comes at a $2300 premium. It would be worth perhaps $300 - 500 to me but not $2300 (I'd buy a 4-core Mac Pro for $1500 in a hearbeat - but it doesn't exist). Obviously there are other technically inclined folks that feel the same way. But that was my point, you personally may find the extra cost to be worthwhile. I was not arguing that it is worthless.

You also give up certain items by choosing the Mac Pro: faster, cheaper RAM, available graphics cards, an overclockable CPU, expansion slots. Just buy what works best for you.

By the way, the vast majority of drivers that a Hackintosh uses are Apple's own (in the System/Library/Extensions folder), only a small handful are required in the Extras/Extensions folder. There are utilities that will install the necessary ones for you. It's much easier building a Hackintosh than it was a year or even 6 months ago.

Or you can do like I did: Buy the most compatible hardware in the first place and the worst that can go wrong is user error -- easily fixed.

The first time you install OSX86 I can almost guarantee you won't get something right, but if you research and read up on what you did wrong the next time it will either work, or work well. After that it's gravy.